@William said:

For some reason I like that rain piece.  I have wondered about this system of yours - can it do tonal music and what does that sound like?  Also, where does the composer's creativity come in? I assume it is in adjusting the parameters of the automatic generation. Or is that too small an amount of input to actually qualify as "creativity" ?

I guess this "background music" for an art exhibition last December in Gallery is a good example:

http://www.synestesia.fi/music.html

The notes were generated from the paintings shown (in 5 seconds).  I then tried to find the feeling of every single painting by selecting proper instruments. Of course different instruments have different pitch ranges but I didn't care. If some notes were not "played", no problem.

I quess that is an example of composer creativity. Listening what comes out is still important and here new software instruments make this all possible.

If you mean by tonal music only scales, any artificial set of pitch classed can be set as a parameter. One set is "Scelsi" consisting of only one pitch class. Going further, the systems doesn't use standard harmony rules, standard voice leading etc. And it doesn't try to make the music "playable" by living musicians.

I hope this helped a little.

@vibrato said:

Is this a form of Algorythmic music? Have you written a code - which then depending on the inserted image file - generates a coressponding MIDI file. Is this output different each time? Even when the same image file is inserted? Or the output is the same for each image file - unique.

What is the purpose of this software? Are you using something like Max/Msp/Jitter to do this?

How is an image file interpreted by this software? What control do you have on this interpretation? 

Is it like Meta Synth etc?

And finally - how is this different from just using a small application to come up with Random MIDI notes? How and by what amount does an image file influence the MIDI notes?

If it is only generating MIDI notes - how then does it relate to the image - given that the notes could be given any colour by choosing different instruments?

This is algoritmic music.

I have written the code. It is a Java applet about 800 lines of code + the pitch range tables.

The output is always the same if parameters (or picture) are not changed. No randomness is involved.

What is the purpose of music?

No Max etc. is used.

No semantic "interpretation" is possible because music doesn't have any semantics if (cultural) cliches are exluded.

MetaSynth generates only small sound groups. Using another sw those sounds can be manually collected as a piece. Synestesia sw generates the whole piece in five seconds.

You should compare the results with "Random MIDI notes.

I guess the colour question got its answer when I awswered to William.

That is interesting lgrohn.  Though I do not see any answer to what the picture has to do with the music.  Are you saying that the mere timbre of the instrument is the only relationship to the picture?  Or does the software translate visual parameters of the picture into tonal/rhythmic variations?

@Another User said:

Angelo - I am afraid that your internet Googling is not the reality of things here. 

If I ever decide to restart formal music education, and go on to do a PhD in Music, I am definitely going to take the following approach, based on many previous threads here:

1) Work out what the title of my thesis is

2) Post the exact opposite of that title as an opinion on this forum

3) Wait for Angelo to post a bunch of references explaining why I am wrong, and a bit of a moron

4) That's my bibliography

Should cut a year off the PhD.

This ultra short doctorate above is not even good enough for a Honoris Causa Dubiosis

@nicks@aubergine.co.uk said:

If I ever decide to restart formal music education, and go on to do a PhD in Music, I am definitely going to take the following approach, based on many previous threads here:

1) Work out what the title of my thesis is

2) Post the exact opposite of that title as an opinion on this forum

3) Wait for Angelo to post a bunch of references explaining why I am wrong, and a bit of a moron

4) That's my bibliography

Should cut a year off the PhD.

And...

5) Make sure you carry a gun in case you run into Angelo - so you can either
6) Shoot him or
7) Shoot yourself

Not only that we have talking aubergines in this forum but also apostles who give advice on how to kill archangels... reads like a libretto for a VIE CRUCIS short opera, maybe good for carrying 7,815 seconds of music:

Absinthe, Bicycles and Merdre

1st Act - Paulus and Dr. Aubergine (7,0815 s)

Pilate: Make sure you carry a gun in case you run into Angelo - so you can either
Barrabas and the Maria Choir: Shoot him or...
Paulus: Shoot yourself

2nd Act - The Passion As An Uphill Bicycle Race (circa 35 minute). Plot, to be set to music:

Barabbas, slated to race, was scratched.

Pilate, the starter, pulling out his clepsydra or water clock, an operation which wet his hands unless he had merely spit on them -- Pilate gave the send-off.

Jesus got away to a good start.

In those days, according to the excellent sports commentator St. Matthew, it was customary to flagellate the sprinters at the start the way a coachman whips his horses. The whip both stimulates and gives a hygienic massage. Jesus, then, got off in good form, but he had a fiat right away. A bed of thorns punctured the whole circumference of his front tire.

Today in the shop windows of bicycle dealers you can see a reproduction of this veritable crown of thorns as an ad for puncture-proof tires. But Jesus's was an ordinary single-tube racing tire.

The two thieves, obviously in cahoots and therefore "thick as thieves," took the lead.

It is not true that there were any nails. The three objects usually shown in the ads belong to a rapid-change tire tool called the "Jiffy."

We had better begin by telling about the spills; but before that the machine itself must be described.

The bicycle frame in use today is of relativelv recent invention. It appeared around 1890. Previous to that time the body of the machine was constructed of two tubes soldered together at right angles. It was generally called the right-angle or cross bicycle. Jesus, after his puncture, climbed the slope on foot, carrying on his shoulder the bike frame, or, if you will, the cross.

Contemporary engravings reproduce this scene from photographs. But it appears that the sport of cycling, as a result of the well known accident which put a grievous end to the Passion race and which was brought up to date almost on its anniversary by the similar accident of Count Zborowski on the Turbie slope -- the sport of cycling was for a time prohibited by state ordinance. That explains why the illustrated magazines, in reproducing this celebrated scene, show bicycles of a rather imaginary design. They confuse the machine's cross frame with that other cross, the straight handlebar. They represent Jesus with his hands spread on the handlebars, and it is worth mentioning in this connection that Jesus rode lying flat on his back in order to reduce his air resistance.

Note also that the frame or cross was made of wood, just as wheels are to this day.

A few people have insinuated falsely that Jesus's machine was a draisienne , an unlikely mount for a hill-climbing contest. According to the old cyclophile hagiographers, St. Briget, St. Gregory of Tours, and St. Irene, the cross was equipped with adevice which they name suppedaneum. There is no need to be a great scholar to translate this as "pedal."

Lipsius, Justinian, Bosius, and Erycius Puteanus describe an other accessory which one still finds, according to Cornelius Curtius in 1643, on Japanese crosses: a protuberance of leather or wood on the shaft which the rider sits astride -- manifestly the seat or saddle.

This general description, furthermore, suits the definition of a bicycle current among the Chinese: "A little mule which is led by the ears and urged along by showering it with kicks."

We shall abridge the story of the race itself, for it has been narrated in detail by specialized works and illustrated by sculpture and painting visible in monuments built to house such art. There are fourteen turns in the difficult Golgotha course. Jesus took his first spill at the third turn. His mother, who was in the stands, became alarmed.

His excellent trainer, Simon the Cyrenian, who but for the thorn accident would have been riding out in front to cut the wind, carried the machine.

Jesus, though carrying nothing, perspired heavily. It is not certain whether a female spectator wiped his brow, but we know that Veronica, a girl reporter, got a good shot of him with her Kodak.

The second spill came at the seventh turn on some slippery pavement. Jesus went down for the third time at the eleventh turn, skidding on a rail.

The Israelite demimondaines waved their handkerchiefs at the eighth.

The deplorable accident familiar to us all took place at the twelfth turn. Jesus was in a dead heat at the time with the thieves. We know that he continued the race airborne -- but that is another renaissance opera.

.

thanks

@William said:

That is interesting lgrohn.  Though I do not see any answer to what the picture has to do with the music.  Are you saying that the mere timbre of the instrument is the only relationship to the picture?  Or does the software translate visual parameters of the picture into tonal/rhythmic variations?

Because music doesn't have any semantics "translation" in real sense is not possible. But selecting instruments, tempo, maximum note lengt, deepness of harmony and also using any possible scale (if not all pitch classes are not used) gives a lot of possibilities. Still without writing any notes.

I agree that images do not have semantics as strictly defined in language study, but they do have meanings that can be "translated" in similar ways to what you are doing with a computer. In fact, the "translation" of music into images or vice versa is an entire artform in itself, with masters such as Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye, Oskar Fishinger (who was imitated in Disney's Fantasia),  and Jordan Belson whose films have just recently become available on DVD. The Center for Visual Music is releasing a number of these abstract films that directly relate images to music in an attempt at "translation."

What I find interesting about the so-called "translation" is that one can set up similarities based upon (admittedly somewhat arbitrarily selected) parameters such as wavelength - blue color corresponding to higher pitches, red color to lower; forms of movement such as snake-like sinous motions corresponding to close slurred legato notes; staccato notes heard during short bursts of light, etc.  It is of course not a direct relationship, but nevertheless forms an interesting artistic pursuit in the attempt at defining potential relationships between audio/visual elements.

@William said:

I agree that images do not have semantics as strictly defined in language study, but they do have meanings that can be "translated" in similar ways to what you are doing with a computer. In fact, the "translation" of music into images or vice versa is an entire artform in itself, with masters such as Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye, Oskar Fishinger (who was imitated in Disney's Fantasia),  and Jordan Belson whose films have just recently become available on DVD. The Center for Visual Music is releasing a number of these abstract films that directly relate images to music in an attempt at "translation."

I said that "music doesn't have semantics". Paintings and photos do have if not too abstract. Music doesn't have any meaning except cultural cliches/conventions. Film music is different, because rhythm can be used. In worst cases it is just "Mickey Mouse" correnpondence using special sounds, rubato etc. Most of Disney animation belong to this cathegory. It had its time but...Here you find an example of a bad modern use:

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/showthread.php?t=14523

@William said:

What I find interesting about the so-called "translation" is that one can set up similarities based upon (admittedly somewhat arbitrarily selected) parameters such as wavelength - blue color corresponding to higher pitches, red color to lower; forms of movement such as snake-like sinous motions corresponding to close slurred legato notes; staccato notes heard during short bursts of light, etc.

Haven't seen any good examples of this. My system is mainly using colours for volumes and it hasa special role in the filtering process.

PS. Synesthetic people have various colour/pitch correspondences, no "standard" exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

That is what I just was talking about - that there is no standard and so it is an entire artform in itself. 

Your conception that "music has no meaning except for cliches" is  false.  If that were true then there would be no difference between music and white noise.

1916 : The Optophonic Piano was created by the Russian Futurist painter Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné (1888-1944). The Optophonic Piano generated sounds and projected revolving patterns onto a wall or ceiling by directing a bright light through a series revolving painted glass disks (painted by Rossiné), filters, mirrors and lenses. The keyboard controlled the combination of the various filters and disks. The variations in opacity of the painted disk and filters were picked up by a photo-electric cell controlling the pitch of a single oscillator. The instrument produced a continuous varying tone which--accompanied by the rotating kaleidascopic projections--was used by Vladimir Rossiné at exhibitions and public events. (Sources: Keyboard Museum, Historie du synthe)

@William said:

Your conception that "music has no meaning except for cliches" is  false.  If that were true then there would be no difference between music and white noise.

Creating emotions/feelings doesn't mean that music, paintings etc. should have semantics. Old music is full of cultural cliches making it easiar to be "get". But yes. To many people music from other cultures is just a kind of "noise". That actually proves my point.

No it does not. It simply proves that the meaning inherent in another kind of music is not discernible to someone ignorant of that culture.  But that is not at all the same thing as meaningless cliches.

You have made it clear that you - with your highly intellectual approach to music - think that all meaning other than intellectualism - i.e. deterministic, mechanistic linear thought - is not meaning at all. In that you are profoundly mistaken.  Half ot human history consists of other forms of meaning.  And they are not reducible to "cultural cliches."

@Another User said:

You have made it clear that you - with your highly intellectual approach to music - think that all meaning other than intellectualism - i.e. deterministic, mechanistic linear thought - is not meaning at all. In that you are profoundly mistaken.  Half ot human history consists of other forms of meaning.  And they are not reducible to "cultural cliches."

Agreed.